Movies and Waffles and New Friends - Oh My!

Hung out at Tea's apartment with Tea and her friend who I want to become friends with too. We ate delicious waffles, chatted a lot, and marathon watched the first season of Penny Dreadful. Tea's friend is a musician who has a crazy family history with all sorts of interesting stories. She told us about an uncle of hers who was in the army and met a German woman. They fell in love, racism happened, and he moved back to the states. They moved on with their lives but then years later she was widowed and she called him. He was also single and luckily he had the same phone number. She flew over to visit him, they got back together, and they lived happily ever after. It's the kind of story that would make an amazing movie, don't you think?

Penny Dreadful movie poster.

Week Without Housemates

This week most of my housemates have been off camping. It was just me and Belle until Tuesday and then Karma joined us for the rest of the week. It has been blissful having so much quiet, but I've begun to miss everybody so I'm glad they're coming back soon.

That said, I did manage to deep clean the house while they were away. And Belle and I have taken advantage of all our time together to watch tons of horror movies. My favorite was "Hush" by Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel. It might be my new favorite horror movie ever because it features a Deaf protagonist who is actually smart unlike the majority of the victims in horror movies.

Movie poster for "Hush."

Babysitting!

I spent today babysitting one of my former nannying kids. It was delightful! We played pirates, built a ginormous block tower, went to the playground, and had a tea party with her stuffed animals in which everyone drank blueberry tea. Her dad came back during her nap so I got to chat with him for a bit, which was nice. Then the three of us got sandwiches from a local café and carried them to the JP cemetary to eat them before walking home via the woods.

Nannying kid and her dad on our woods walk.

Backyard Burning Man and Movies

Today I went with Weirdra to a backyard burning man party. We were instructed to make our own tickets for the event so we did that. Weirdra also made a delicious casserole for the potluck. Everyone there was friendly. I even ran into my former neighbor and got caught up on her life which was random since the party was nowhere near our old neighborhood. I also ran into a former boyfriend and we gave each other a head nod and then quietly avoided each other the rest of the time. It's at moments like that that the queer community feels too small. Ours was a really painful breakup because he has kids so it felt like I lost a whole family and not just a boyfriend. That said - despite the awkwardness, I had a good time and it was neat to watch the wicker man sculpture burning.

I don't have any pictures of the party, but I do have a picture of the place somebody yarn bombed in the center of town:

Yarn bomb.

After backyard burning man, we went back to my house where we hung out with Belle and watched "The Invitation" by Karyn Kusama. I really liked it and would recommend it to any horror fans out there.

Day with Primo and Fancy

I liked Boston Canoe and Kayak so much I decided to go again - this time with the oldest kid housemate. He turned out to be a marvelous paddling companion, even though he did like scaring the ducks.

Primo paddling.

Ducks.

More Primo.

Me.

Me and Primo.

After kayaking we went on a walk playing Pokémon Go in which we won our first gym. Then we had lunch in the park. Next we stopped at home, went on another walk to the library and to Circle The Square which is a street fair, and then we walked home and read our comic books on the couch. Spiderman for him and the graphic novel version of Kafka's The Castle for me.

Picture from one of the Miles Morales Spider Man comic books.

A note on Spiderman: I was super excited to find these particular Spiderman comics because instead of Peter Parker this one features Miles Morales who is of black hispanic descent. Primo was so psyched to see a brown superhero he literally sat there and read for two hours straight which never happens. So HUGE kudos to the creators of this comic!

Anyway. After my day with Primo, I went to visit Fancy. I was treated to delicious vegan crêpes for dinner, followed by a lovely walk along the seashore. The ocean was so pretty!

Pretty ocean view!

Friends!!!

Yesterday my friend Yams was visiting from Israel. We met when Yams moved into the coop my ex-husband and I moved out of and we've stayed in touch since then. Yams is an actor, a puppet maker, and a fellow not-yet-published children's book writer. We decided to meet up and go canoeing along the Charles River in Cambridge. He brought along his traveling companion, a delightful Jewish Israeli actor/director visiting the USA for the first time. We used Charles River Canoe and Kayak for our three-person canoe rental. It was lovely and we saw an unidentified bird. I think it's a great blue heron?

The rental kayaks.

My friend and his traveling companion.

All of us in the kayak.

What is this bird?

We made it! Triumph!

After canoeing the three of us went to the south end for dinner and were joined by Yams' sister's friend who is a Catholic MIT graduate from Egypt who left because the environment for Christians there is incredibly unsafe.

Today I went with my friend Olive and her daughter (former nannying kid) to the MFA. I really like that this is becoming our thing to do together. It's nice to have friends who enjoy going to museums. My favorite part of the museum today was "Wisdom of the Poor: Living with Pigeons" made by Chinese artist Song Dong in 2005.  It's a house you can actually climb around in and I love interactive art so that made me happy:

My next favorite was "The Visitation" by Italian sculptor Luca della Robbia in 1445(ish). The coolest thing about this is how it was constructed - four pieces balanced and held together by their own weight with the gaps hidden in the folds of the garments:

This Week

This week I did a whole lot of nothing and it was glorious. I reconnected with a former friend (Cupcake) and we hung out for a bit. I also finally managed to go for coffee with a potential new friend who said he'll come with me to some bear events. I'm excited about this because I've been trying to work up the nerve to go since I think bears are hot. For those not in the know yet, "bear" is a gay slang term for a hairy and heavyset man, like this fellow:

Gay bear on the phone.

Anyway, the end of the week brought a weekend trip to Rockport. I had a blast! The trip contained a revolving cast of characters: Joy, Mini T, Belle, Home Slice, Karaoqueen, Fancy, Karma, Primo, Secondo, and Terzo. With special guest appearances by my cousin and Surrogate Mom, who rented me the house. Here's my summary…

Joy and Mini T and I arrived in Rockport, put our stuff at the house, and went immediately to the beach where Joy and I watched a seagull steal our goldfish crackers and Mini T made a friend and overcame her fear of seaweed with the help of swim goggles. 

The beach.

Mini T in her swim goggles. She wore these ALL day even after the beach.

Our friend the seagull.

In the evening we were joined by Alice, Home Slice, and Fancy. We had a delicious dinner, played a bit of scrabble, and went to the beach to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. It was overcast so we didn't see many meteors but it was nice lying on the beach listening to the waves. I didn't take any pictures of this because it was dark and I opted to leave the phone behind.

The next day, after a pancake breakfast, I set out fairly early with Joy and Mini T to visit Surrogate Mom in her new house in Gloucester. Mini T was excited to look for frogs and feed the fish with Surrogate Mom. 

Mini T and Surrogate Mom feeding fish.

After that, we explored the town with Alice and Home Slice.

Sign in a window that says "Eat Dessert First Life is so Uncertain."

Alice, Me, Joy, Mini T, Home Slice, and Daddy Bear (Mini T's teddy bear).

The weekend we chose to visit Rockport also happened to be the weekend of the lantern festival so they had free face painting and free lantern decorating! Alice and Home Slice did their own thing while Joy, Mini T, and I partook in the festivities.

Mini T and I painting our lanterns.

Joy and Mini T hold up their completed lanterns.

Me, Mini T, and Joy show off our face paint.

After all of that, we went for ice cream and watched the harbor. We also checked out a bunch of stores including a candy store where we got to watch them making taffy.

View of the harbor with our lanterns hanging in front.

Mini T watches the taffy making.

We came back to the rental house afterwards for dinner and scrabble, where we were joined by Karaoqueen.

Mini T shows off the house and lanterns.

After that, we walked back to town where we hung out briefly with my cousin and then went to look at the lanterns and the fireworks.

Alice, Joy, Mini T, Karaoqueen, and Home Slice on the sidewalk.

Alice is a single and ready to flamingle Pokemon Go champion. 

Mini T touches a lobster.

Lanterns.

Fireworks over the harbor.

Lanterns.

The next morning, Karma and the other kids came to hang out. We went on a nature walk/climb and then out to ice cream.

Karma and I on the rocks.

Secondo on the rocks. 

Primo and Terzo climbing.

Me in front of the harbor.

Mini T and Terzo enjoying their ice cream.

Karma and Terzo at the ice cream place.

It was a fabulous weekend and I hope to go to Rockport again soon!

Robots vs. Dragons

I spent today with Secondo and we fought an epic lego battle of robots vs. dragons. 

Me and second with two of our dragons.

The battle.

Brunch Discovery

Ok. This is an entire post to say that I went to brunch at a friend's house today and I discovered the joys of jackfruit. Omg! It is the PERFECT vegan pulled pork substitute and it's utterly delicious. Of course, I haven't eaten pork since the 90s so I may not be accurately remembering the taste. But I was thrilled and will now be using my newfound knowledge to make pulled "pork" sandwiches all the time.

Picture of two jackfruits. 

Fierce Friday

Today was kind of a crappy day for me so I thought that I'd cheer myself up with a sort of circus magician look. A friend's top hat, black shirt, sparkly fingernails, lacy shawl, black earrings, and cross necklace.

Me showing off my nails.

A somewhat blurry picture of me.

The other point of excitement today was that my housemate Belle and I found a tomato plant growing in a crack in the pavement of the street. So random!

Street tomato!